"Armin" he published a number of works
of fiction, but he was best known under the name of "Sir John
Retcliffe," having published a series of sensational novels describing
the Crimean war, "Sebastopol," "Rena-Sahib," "Villafranca," "Puebla,"
"Biarritz," in 1866. A new edition of these works appeared in Berlin in
1903-4.

_Brockhaus' Konversations Lexikon_ (supplement volume XVII, 1904) refers
to Goedsche, the novelist, known under the name of "Sir John Retcliffe"
(formerly "Armin"), as having played an infamous role in the Waldeck
forgery case. He was compelled to leave the postal service, and later
became a member of the staff of the _Preussische Kreutz Zeitung_.

The chapter of the Goedsche-Retcliffe novel which on even a cursory
reading will be found to contain the very essence of the Nilus Protocols
was published as a separate booklet in a Russian translation in 1872,
avowedly as a work of fiction. I have found a copy of this little volume
in the Russian Department of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

An examination of this chapter, entitled "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague
and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel," will
disclose the fact that every substantive statement contained in the
Protocols and elaborated in them is to be found in the
Goedsche-Retcliffe novelette.

We are thus supplied with an early draft of the so-called Protocols,
which have now been given worldwide publicity by anti-Jewish
propagandists, and which were first introduced to the world in the form
of a clumsy piece of blood-curdling fiction of the dime-novel variety.

In substantiation of this statement I now present a translation of this
chapter of the Russian version of this novel found in the Library of
Congress in Washington, published in St. Petersburg nearly fifty years
ago.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF TITLE PAGE OF THE FANTASTIC STORY PUBLISHED
IN RUSSIA IN 1872, CONTAINING THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE PROTOCOLS IN THE
FORM OF FICTION.]

[Transliteration:
EVREJSKOE KLADBISHHE V PRAGE

i

SOVET PREDSTAVITELEJ

DVENADCATI KOLEN IZRAILEVYH.

* * * * *

S.-PETERBURG.
TIPOGRAFIJA TOVARISHHESTVA "OBSHHESTVENNAJA POL'ZA",

po mojke, u kruglago rynka, N